'Fly on the Wall'
Citrus Arts was set up in 2008 by Bridie Doyle and James Roberts and are a relatively new Welsh company producing performance work that sits between circus, dance and theatre.
'Fly on the Wall' started its life as part of the 'Inkling' project last year in the Weston Studio at WMC. A good idea, some diverse and creative performers, a few days rehearsal and a 'sharing' of work alongside several other companies, both new and established, who were competing for the chance to get more development time if their idea was well received. After an excellent reception and feedback we were one of two companies invited back to take part in the 'Incubator' project later that year; a show at the end this time and more rehearsal space granted as support gathered for this unusual and ambitious adventure...
The idea for the piece originally was to explore the controversy surrounding the 'riots' which occured at the G20 summit in London last year, where police and protestors had many well publicised violent clashs... What soon became apparent was how interesting in itself the surreal chaotic volume of reportáge is at this kind of large scale public event. With so many more people watching , observing, reporting, blogging and passionately tweeting about events as they unfold than are actually protesting in the traditional sense, it raises the obvious question - So why do people still go to protests? Do they actually make a difference?...
As a starting point we also began piecing together some possible elements to explore...
- A kind of day in the life of a big city.
- But one in the grip of public protest seen through a thousand different kinds of eyes and voices.
- All of which are speaking the 'truth' about what's happening as they see it...
So how do you know what really happened? Who do you choose to believe?...
( -and things got more complicated and interesting from there on in really - so... not TOO ambitious an idea for a six person ensemble to create then?- of course not!)
We began by gathering as much research as we could - literally hundreds of eye witness reports, offical reports, bankers, politicians, policemen, protestors, anarchists, political commentators, passersby, and of course the sea of bloggers voicing opinions on events as they unfolded live on the web across the world. We are also using our own varying experiences of protests, politics, crowds and are creating original material based on all of the above and more...
We are still in the early stages of creating this piece given the limited intensive rehearsal times we have had, but the range of dramatic potential and physical possibilty has been interesting to explore so far...
This time around the performing ensemble comprises of; James Roberts, Bridie Doyle, Dave John Norton, Gustav Lundstrom, Francis Widdowson and myself. We all have different specialist performance backgrounds - some theatre, some dance, some circus, and such a variety of personality and dynamic quality which is what I think makes the work so exciting to create as well as to watch.
For this period of research and development we were lucky enough to have Phil Mackenzie, a well renowned and extremely talented director who's work is recognised internationally for its innovation and physicality. He has been working with us and helping to shape the piece further through extensive improvisation, discussion and general wonderful advice- Thank- you Phil!
We hope to continue to work on FOTW in October at some point whenever everybody's incredibly complicated diary commitments will allow...
Citrus Arts are currently in the process of applying for further funding to develop 'Fly On The Wall' to its full potential and if all goes to plan will be touring in Spring 2011.
Watch this space or visit www.http://citrusarts.squarespace.com/ for more information on future productions.
All the pictures posted here were taken during R&D in the Weston Studio, WMC August 2010 by Janire Nadja & Matt Wright and are reproduced here with the kind permission of themselves and Citrus Arts.